Baseball Expands Into New Season

March 31, 1998|The Morning Call

After a harsh winter, the first day of Major League Baseball is the sweetest of rescues. After the non-winter winter of 1997-98, it isn't bad either.

Of course, the college and high school teams of the Lehigh Valley already are two weeks into their seasons but it isn't until the first big-league games that it truly feels like the seasons have turned. Bottom-line, it has little to do with the weather.

The students of baseball know that the opening day of each season carries with it themes and story lines. This year, of course, the obvious story is another expansion season. The new team in the American League is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. In the National League, it's the Arizona Diamondbacks. And, for the first time ever, a team has moved from one league to the other. (The Milwaukee Brewers now will play against the Phillies and the rest of the Nationals.)

Common wisdom says that expansion stretches further the talent pool of available pitchers. Therefore, the hitters will feast. Another story still is unfolding. Four Cuban baseball players fled their island home in a small boat last week, and they now are being held in detention in the Bahamas. The means of their emigration still must be worked out, but it is no secret that their objective is to play professional baseball in the United States.

Keeping in mind the glory and excitement reaped by another Cuban emigre during last year's World Series -- the Marlins' pitcher Livan Hernandez, whose brother happens to be among the four who just fled -- we see in new dimensions the passion that baseball still can ignite.